Saturday, April 23, 2011

Political rumblings

There were some rumblings this week down in Jackson, Ms. that a redistricting deal had been cut. But I'll believe that when I see it. The legislature is already out so Governor Barbour would have to call a special session and the only way he'll do that is if the democrats commit voluntary political suicide and somehow I doubt that will happen. Another thing going on is this obsession with buying gold and its coming mainly from conservatives, unfortunately. I talked to someone in Decatur, Al. yesterday about it and I couldn't help but shake my head at the argument I was hearing. At the end of the day its like this, if you are in a financial position where you put some resources into gold then by all means do that. But to spin the argument to low and middle income folks that they need to buy gold because the dollar is going to disappear in short order is just wrong. Retailers already complain to high heaven about having to deal with small coins like pennies and nickels. Can you imagine what their response would be if people started coming in and flopping down gold bricks ? I even had a client complain to me this week that they didnt like dealing with gold coins. So I just can't imagine a scenario where gold will ever replace the dollar as our currency and people who peddle this notion should be ashame. One final note concerns county school superintendents over in Alabama. State Senator Paul Bussman(R) is supporting legislation to make the position an appointed one. His argument seems to be that better qualified people come from an appointment process. I'm highly disappointed in the good Senator for doing this. What happens when you have an appointed school superintendent is that the local good old boys get together and pick one of their "pals" and then they go to the school board and twist a few arms and wham bam we have a new school superintendent at the end of the day. Thats the way the process has gone in Tennessee since they went to an appointment process. Sure the bigger counties like Shelby and Davidson have hired some from out of state but for the most part its been one of the good old boys in the rural areas that end up with these jobs. So Cullman County, Al voters should ask themselves a question. Do you want the good old boys down at the courthouse,Terri Pines and Smith Lake picking one of their friends for this job or do you want to choose every four years? Hopefully the new GOP majority in Alabama will stop this silly piece of legislation before its too late. Conservatives shouldn't be in the process of taking away the rights of people to vote for certain offices. The democrats did this in Tennessee with numerous offices and to this day it remains in my opinion one of the shameful abuses of power I have ever seen.....